Grants talk:APG/Proposals/2017-2018 round 2/The Centre for Internet and Society/Proposal form

Thanks

Hello CIS colleagues! Thank you for submitting your application for this round. We'll get back to you in the next few days with preliminary questions as needed. Best, Delphine (WMF) (talk) 13:48, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Questions from WMF

Hello @Titodutta: and team. here is a first round of questions, focused on numbers and making sure we understand them all.

FTEs

Your team is looking to expand by 3 FTE, which really would only be 2 if your staffing projections last year had worked out. Can you give us a little more context on staffing changes this year, and why for example you're not starting the year with 11 FTE as planned in the last proposal? Thanks! Delphine (WMF) (talk) 13:20, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

• Hello, thanks for the question. Currently we do not have a Program Officer for Communication, since January 2018. We expect (and need) to have a Communication Officer in this year's work-plan. We had this position in the current proposal, so it actually makes expansion by 2. Thanks for pointing it. Let me try to explain FTE changes:

1. this year, under the Focused Project Area, we have proposed to work with Punjabi Wikimedians. There we need to get a Community Advocate. This is the first expansion.
2. this year, we have proposed to have a dedicated finance person to help us with all accounts and finance-related works. So, we have added this position in the proposal as "Financial Officer".

All other positions remain same. Please let us know if we failed to answer your question, or if you have follow-up question(s). Best regards. -- Tito Dutta (talk) 08:18, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

reserves

As a point of curiosity, since you ahve no reserves listed in this proposal and are not asking for any, can you confirm whether CIS has reserves and if not, what the rationale for this may be? Thanks Delphine (WMF) (talk) 13:20, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

• Greetings, CIS as an institution does not have significant operating reserves. It has been a policy of the A2K team to use FDC funds purely for programmatic purpose and volunteer support. We would like to raise independent funds to build operating reserves for the team. -- Tito Dutta (talk) 14:26, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Total expenses

In table 8, you ahve a footnote (#5) pointing out that some of the staff costs are in kind support. Can you be more specific about this? (also there's a 1,000,00 number which is probably in lakhs? Thank you for converting this into the same numbering system used elsewhere!). Delphine (WMF) (talk) 08:37, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

• Hello, Apologies for the typo. We shall change the numbers as per the standard practice. The amount corresponds to our Project Director's salary that is being drawn from other grants (other than Wikimedia Foundation). Hence this amount is shown as in-kind support. -- Tito Dutta (talk) 14:15, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Thank you Tito Dutta for your answers. Delphine (WMF) (talk) 12:16, 14 May 2018 (UTC)